The present invention is directed generally to an apparatus for producing decorative ice products and, more specifically, to a self-contained, decorative ice bowl freezing apparatus.
In the prior art, it has been desirable for special occasions, such as weddings, birthday parties, graduation parties, anniversaries, etc., to provide sculptures and/or other objects made of ice as decorative features for the occasion. One such item has been a bowl made of ice. Such ice bowls have, in the past, been carved from a solid block of ice to include a cavity in the central portion thereof. In the central cavity of such carved ice bowls, a punch bowl has often been disposed in such prior art embodiments. However, such prior art carved ice bowls have been time consuming and expensive to produce and have required considerable skill in the manufacture thereof, often involving a waste of one or more blocks of ice due to slips of the craftsman and/or faults in the ice blocks which have led to fractures thereof.
An improvement over the hand-carved ice bowl has been the ice bowl which is formed by freezing water in a mold. One advantage of this type of improved ice bowl of the prior art has been that these improved techniques have permitted the inclusion of various decorative elements, such as flowers, letters, paper letters, or other decorative or visual indicia, within the structure of the ice bowl. However, a major disadvantage of such prior art molded ice bowls has been the necessity of requiring an ice block plant in order to freeze-form such molded ice bowls. This disadvantage has had the additional disadvantages of requiring a large capital investment in order to produce molded ice bowls; has made the source of supply of such ice bowls relatively concentrated; and has denied consumers in many areas of the country the benefit of such decorative ice bowls due to the fragile and ephemeral quality of these decorative ice bowls.
In view of the shortcomings and disadvantages of prior art ice bowl-forming techniques and devices, it is a material object and intent of the present invention to provide an improved, self-contained, decorative ice bowl freezing apparatus which will substantially overcome such disadvantages.